


To Do In Tent

by Mithrigil



Category: The Great British Bake Off RPF, Untitled Goose Game (Video Game)
Genre: Anarchy, Backstage, Bad Puns, Crack Treated Seriously, F/F, Food Porn, Gen, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Lost Episode, Misses Clause Challenge, Slapstick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-13
Updated: 2019-12-13
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:01:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21782608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mithrigil/pseuds/Mithrigil
Summary: It is a lovely morning in the Bake-off Tent, and you know exactly what this fic is about.
Comments: 57
Kudos: 357
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	To Do In Tent

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flipflop_diva](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flipflop_diva/gifts).



> All names of GBBO below-the-line crew members are products of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
> 
> The sociopathic avian is entirely real.

_To Do In Tent_   
_make someone get a soggy bottom_  
_make a terrible pun_  
_make Mel and Sue kiss_  
_get a handshake from the silverback gorilla_  
_win a technical challenge_  
_wear a fancy apron_  
_get this bread_  
_steal the posh car_  
_be absolutely scrummy_  
_stop the show_

It was a lovely morning in the Bake-Off tent, and the B-roll needed footage. Despite the uncharacteristically idyllic weather, the photoshop-clear skies and rolling green pasture, not one cooperative animal was to be seen. Too many squirrels were putting their ample nut reserves on display. The local stoats were slaughtering rabbits three times their size in full view of scandalized sparrows. The sheep-with-helpful-graffiti weren’t polling terribly well among the 18-35s. In short, it was starting to look like Channel 4, and that simply would not do.

Production Assistant Basil Reedington was on the case.

Just after dawn, while the bakers were still asleep at the Welford Park manor house and the marquee was still being dressed for establishing shots, Basil set out alone, with only his camera and earbuds (incongruously, Debussy put him in the proper mood for asserting man’s dominance over his environment) in search of photogenic local fauna. The manor house was rounded with a gently rustling oxbow creek, trickling over cairns of rounded stone and around dense fallen brambles and leaves from the canopy overhead, which had proven fruitful in the past. At the sharpest bend of the creek, there was a slick brown log, a precarious perch for any denizen of the countryside.

And that is when he saw her: the most majestic creature, save Mary Berry, to ever grace the Bake-Off tent.

She had pristine white feathers and broad fluttering wings, and a graceful curve to her neck, ending in a bright orange beak and glossy black eyes. She floated down the creek without a care in the world, and didn’t appear to notice Basil at all as she coasted to a stop by the log, unfurling her wings as she steadied herself on her climb out of the water.

Basil immediately ducked and trained his camera on the magnificent beast. Forget squirrels, this goose was photogenic as all get-out and the lighting was more than adequate. He lay on a mildly slippery patch of earth a while as the goose shook off some glistening droplets of water. _Exquisite,_ thought he.

After several minutes of this, feeling somewhat uncomfortably like David watching Bathsheba if Bathsheba were a goose, the goose craned her long neck in Basil’s direction and blinked.

Perhaps Basil could have moved then – after all, he’d gotten a good three minutes of footage – but he remembered something his friend Yolanda Who Did Actual Wildlife Photography In Namibia said about Just Staying Still being the better part of valor. Basil had seen the semi-viral photographs of meerkats climbing up lenses and swiping safari hats off the photographers’ heads, and had, frankly, admired the patience and composure of those photographers, stiff upper lip and all that. So he stayed put, stock-still as the beautiful goose paddled the short way across the creek, clearly habituated enough to approach him. Visions of photography awards and royal commendations danced in Basil’s head as the goose bumped her bill against his lens, like one of the competing bakers testing whether bread had proved. Once, then twice, then a third time she rapped her bill on the glass, muddying it. Still, Basil stayed.

The goose then ducked out of the frame, as swiftly as Basil had hit the floor initially, and plucked Basil’s earbuds clear out of his ears. And, as a direct consequence, his phone out of his pocket and into the muddy riverbank.

Several things happened at once, after that. Basil flailed like a Wacky Waving AirDancer trying to catch his phone before it fell. Basil lost what little footing he had as he, too, slid down the muck and gravel into the water. Most crucially, Basil let go of the camera, which met a similar fate. The device sputtered electronically, like a dying dream of grandeur.

The goose, unperturbed, and enjoying the Debussy immensely, waddled off for the tent.

~~_make someone get a soggy bottom_ ~~

*

Eight bakers remained, and thus the tent was still fairly crowded. On the whole, two crew members per remaining baker, plus dishwashing staff, plus medical, made for a bustling marquee indeed. After they shot the bakers’ entrance and the crossing of the bridge twice, from five angles, they clustered in their corner of the tent for a debriefing.

Production Assistant Basil, it seemed, was nowhere to be found, but there were four other people with that job, so the shoot would proceed apace.

“Good morning, bakers!” Sue chirruped from the fore of the room with Mel, Mary, and Paul in tow. “I hope you’re all feeling ready to receive a bribe from the House of Lords, because it’s Enriched Dough Week.”

The camera crew picked up a few individual chuckles from that that wouldn’t have to be re-timed in post.

Mel went on, scripted, “Now for this, your Signature Challenge, we’ve tasked you with that perennial Continental concoction, the brioche. Now, this brioche must be presented as a single large loaf, like a _Brioche des Rois_ – ” she started in her immaculate French accent.

“ – a Reiaume – ” Sue suggested in less immaculate Catalan.

“ – a Guernsey Gâche – ” Mel posed, “if you’re feeling a bit Norman – ”

“ – or even the Bread of Jesus,” Sue concluded, making an absolute butchery of the name in the manner that only Sue Perkins could, “if you’re feeling even more like going on crusade. You have three hours, so, on your mark – ”

“ – get set – ”

“ – mmmmBaaaaaeeiiike!” Sue finished triumphantly.

The bakers, who had been briefed on this weeks ago, scrambled to begin their breadmaking efforts, and once that bustling overhead shot was established the camera crews swarmed into the center aisle to do the meat of their job. In post, this would be about when those cutaways to Mary and Paul explained exactly why this was an appropriately difficult challenge, making note of the fact that nobody sane attempts to make a brioche in only three hours, and indeed, those helpful expository clips had been filmed earlier in the week. But now, between the crew, the bakers, and Mel and Sue being “helpful”, the tent was activating with three times as much activity as was ever shown on screen.

Eventually, it came time for Last Week’s Star Baker to open her proving drawer for the crucial first prove of what would eventually become a Louisiana King Cake. She smiled at the camera, flashing her testament to the lapses of British dentistry, and ducked beneath her oven to open the hatch.

“Honk,” said the goose.

“Fuck,” said Last Week’s Star Baker, ruining the shot.

_“Fuck!_ ” said the cameraperson currently trained on her with a handheld.

Last Week’s Star Baker dropped the bowl of rising dough on the green carpet (lucky for her, the clingfilm saved the dough from any barely-censored jokes about rug-munching), the cameraperson reeled back, and the goose shimmied out of the proving drawer as if to ask what any of them would _do_ about it. 

Evidently, Last Week’s Star Baker would grab the nearest dough-encrusted hook and brandish it at the goose, threatening in a decidedly unheartwarming manner, “Don’t you dare wreck this for me, you thieving little git!”

The goose proceeded to lunge up and clamp her altogether more threatening toothed tongue around the loose knot of Last Week’s Star Baker’s apron. A rather cinematic wind-up pirouette ensued as Last Week’s Star Baker went careening into the station behind her, and the cameraperson dodged her only to step right into the bowl of proving brioche dough. If anyone could have heard the squelch of Doc Marten in raw dough over the clatter and screaming, they would likely have been put in mind of a spectacular expulsion of flatulence.

It was at this point that the crew and contestants became much more concerned with the potential for injury and broken equipment than the presence of the goose, which is how the goose managed to make off with the apron to parts unknown.

*

This technically being a bread week, a great deal of time was spent kneeling on the floor looking forlornly at the oven doors. The bakers were intent on their brioches; the crew was intent on the bakers; not one pair of shoelaces was spared.

In addition, the goose turned off London Proletariat Representative’s oven a grand total of sixteen times.

She also turned it back on, but that wasn’t nearly as much fun without anything in it.

*

Mary and Paul, oblivious to the chaos, sat conspiring in the gazebo, filming their discussion of the cruelties of this week’s technical challenge.

“They’re not simply jam doughnuts, so you can’t just treat them like doughnuts and call it a day,” Paul explained for the viewers, while Mary tented her fingers and beamed as he set a _sufganiyah_ on her plate. “The high concentration of olive oil in the dough will react with the oil in the deep fat fryer, creating the characteristic irregular airholes – ”

Summoned by the notion of “irregular airholes”, the goose poked her head over the edge of the table and bit down on the _sufganiyah_.

Paul, being Paul, did not let go.

The goose jerked her head back and forth.

Paul, being Paul, still did not let go. “Get your own,” he said.

The goose continued to yank at the _sufganiyah_ , wagging Paul’s hand along the way, until stubbornness won the day and Paul pried the pastry from the goose’s bill. It left a trendy lipstick stain, despite the goose’s lack of lips, and a telltale smear of white powder, despite the goose’s lack of a nose.

“Don’t eat that, Mary,” Paul snarked with Northern nasality, throwing the _sufganiyah_ into the distance. The goose, oddly for a goose, did not immediately follow the food. Instead she waggled her head at Paul as if to say _you’re welcome._

“Well, aren’t you a darling,” said Mary Berry, patting her on the head.

~~_get a handshake from the silverback gorilla_ ~~  
~~_(To Do As Well) receive a royal commendation_ ~~

*

After some restructuring (and Last Week’s Star Baker discreetly being given some extra time to complete her bake due to fowl play), it came time for the crew to take gustatorily pornographic turntable shots of the bakes for the Signature Challenge. A fine display of mostly underproved brioche constructions awaited the camera team at the ends of several benches, while the bakers filed out into the sunny glade for their lunch break.

“Has anyone seen Basil at all?” said Grip Vivek Krishnaswami, adjusting the angle on the light over a brioche sculpted into the shape of Marie Antoinette’s head complete with powdered sugar wig.

“Not since last night,” said Assistant Director of Photography Melissa Yang. “He’s probably off doing the B-roll still. On a day like this, I don’t blame him.”

“Yeah, how about that duck?”

“Goose,” Melissa corrected, “but yeah, wow.” She went through the required lingering sweeps around the decapitated bread, and internally debated whether to zoom in on the barberry and cranberry bloodstains. “Glad everyone’s okay.”

They moved on from the revolutionary loaf to the next, which looked like it was supposed to be yet another swaddled baby Jesus in a tarp. Three of the bakers had made the same Belgian _cougnou_ , but only this one, it seemed, had left the bread effigy covered in an actual cloth. Melissa picked out the optimal angle for the still shot, and instructed Vivek accordingly. 

“Still warm?” Melissa asked.

“Looks like,” Vivek said, patting the sides of the loaf.

The loaf honked.

“What the Christ,” Melissa said.

The goose threw off the trappings of the Son of God.

~~_wear a fancy apron_ ~~  
~~_get this bread_ ~~

*

The technical challenge proved that tempers, and temperature, were unspeakably high. What with eight deep-fat-fryers running simultaneously in a plastic tent on an unforecasted sunny day, the scramble of eight bakers in abject distress, and the cloying scent of dozens of _sufganiyot_ of varying levels of quality, no one noticed the swift swap-out of one solitary _sufganiyah_ from the tray of Welsh Underdog.

The goose ate the warm not-just-a-doughnut right there on the tent floor, green carpet and all.

Once done, she replaced it on the Welsh Underdog’s tray with Paul’s _sufganiyah_ , thrown into the distance earlier in the day and none the worse for grass stains or wear. It had a dent from being carried in her teeth, but was otherwise the perfect specimen of Israeli-by-way-of-colonizing-entity pastry that Paul had touted in the gazebo.

It, along with the others on that tray, was dusted with icing sugar, and set behind the photograph of Welsh Underdog in time for judging.

The goose did not stick around for the process of judging itself: like every citizen of England, she knew very well that Paul Hollywood could not resist the taste of his own doughy balls.

~~_win a technical challenge_ ~~  
~~_make a terrible pun_ ~~

*

For absolutely no reason at all, during the confessional shoot, she stole two more smartphones, one touching family photograph, Elderly Scotswoman’s hearing aid, the asparagus that Mel had pocketed “for later”, someone’s bottle of Adderall, and an entire tube of Jaffa Cakes.

*

Mel and Sue were instructed not to make any goose jokes in the on-camera briefings, as they had been assured that all trace of the irascible fauna would be removed in post.

“Are you kidding?” said Sue, with the sort of righteous indignation usually reserved for opera and Giles Coren. “That fine full-feathered friend is the _anser_ to all our problems. Get it? Anser?”

The Executive Producer rolled her eyes. “That’s a little highbrow, isn’t it?”

“I don’t think geese have eyebrows,” said Mel.

“Oh, ha, ha, ha,” said Executive Producer June Howard, toning down the East London a little with each sarcastic laugh. “Very funny. But that goose injured at least one of my crew, broke some crockery, and extended the shoot. Which means she’s costing us money.”

“All the more reason to leave her in,” said Mel. “Think of the .gifs!”

“The tribute loaves!” suggested Sue.

“The three-tiered gooseberry fools!”

“The little goslings all over the Midlands who’ll see her on the telly and be inspired to take up the whisk in her honor!”

“The point is, think of international relations, June,” Mel concluded. “Malevolent waterfowl are as English as Victoria Sandwiches.”

Sue contemplated this for a moment. “...they aim to control their environments by inciting violence in indigenous populations and systematically taking things that don’t belong to them while the rest of the world turns a blind eye in the name of perseverance and gentility?”

“You’re not helping,” Mel sighed.

“The goose _goes_ ,” said Executive Producer June Howard.

“You’re a three-tiered gooseberry fool,” said Sue.

*

Poor unfortunate Production Assistant Basil Reedington finally pried himself and the remains of his camera out of the creek. The digital footage would probably still hold – and hold up as an explanation for both his absence and the destruction of show property – and so he trudged out of the woodland river with the dripping equipment bundled in his arms. Man’s dominion over nature was in question, and embodied in Basil on this ornithological walk of shame.

He made it halfway across the open field, and into the sight of the marquee, when he beheld her again.

What had been majesty was now terror. What had been exquisite beauty was now the eldritch manifestation of an open Hell, all the devils present in the form of one solitary goose. 

Basil ran back to the creek, screaming.

*

Night fell on the manor, and with it the cover of darkness. The plentiful stars cast the plastic roof of the Bake-Off tent a liquid white, not unlike the color of the goose’s feathers, about which Last Week’s Star Baker was having nightmares. (Despite the extra time she’d been granted, her signature Louisiana King cake had not gone over particularly well with the judges, and she’d been only middling in the technical.) The other bakers were varying degrees of asleep as well, bundled into their beds and fretting about tomorrow’s showstopper. At least one person was being imaginarily run off the cliffs of Dover, chased by villagers with fondue forks.

A lengthy crew debriefing (for which at least they _were_ being paid, because the BBC has standards, goddamn it) ensued, about where Basil had got to (conclusion: no clue), whether they needed to call the police (conclusion: if he’s not back by morning, yes), whether they were going to reimburse the unfortunate cameraperson for their Doc Martens (conclusion: no), and what to do in the event of the reappearance of the downy menace. Today’s shoot had been merely salvageable, which was putting the entire weekend in jeopardy. No episode of The Great British Bake-Off had ever had to be _re-shot_ before. It would reduce the wholesome authenticity of the experience – its chief selling point, mind you – and Executive Producer June Howard had drawn her battle lines.

“It is _your_ responsibility,” she emphasized, in the Shakespeareanly militaristic fashion common to productions starring Kenneth Branagh, “yours, to make sure that goose does not appear in a single shot. We cannot have the contestants looking anything less than happy to be in the countryside. They must _love_ their country and all its creatures. Otherwise the RSPCA will be skewering our asses faster than you can say boo.”

“Why can’t we just make the goose a thing?” asked Stylist Rhoda Kane. “Like the squirrel?”

“The squirrel was harmless,” said June.

“The squirrel was a dick joke,” said Sound Coordinator Meryem Lukasz.

“A dick joke that we could pretend wasn’t a dick joke, which is my point. A goose stealing everything that isn’t nailed down isn’t wholesome fun.”

“Neither is a squirrel with a nutsack the size of the Isle of Wight,” said Drone Operator Jim Ripperlake.

“My _point is_ ,” June said, even though she’d said her point was something else not two sentences ago, “that this is The Great British Bake-Off, not The Great British Goose-Off.”

“That’s what she said,” said Assistant Director Lou Quan.

“No, it isn’t,” June snapped. “And if I see that blasted goose in any key shots tomorrow, I will – ”

The parlor door slammed open like a thunderclap, and in staggered Basil, looking as if he’d been in the trenches of Flanders Fields. In his arms he held the carapace of his camera, not unlike a completely un-bread-related version of Michelangelo's _Pietà_.

“Fuck that fucking goose,” he said, then promptly passed out on the (also green) carpet.

“...put a fondue kit where you sit,” June finished, and then called for Medical.

The fondue paraphernalia in question had, of course, already been loaded into the tent. Eight decorative fondue sets, some of them inherited from proud parents and grandparents who’d actually survived Britain in the nineteen-seventies, graced eight workstations, ready for the morning’s establishing shots. Refrigerators brimmed with carefully labeled cheeses and fancy eggs, jars of Swiss chocolate threatened to burst, baskets of aesthetically arranged fruits lurked beneath gingham and terrycloth, and one exquisitely happy goose slept in a large blue mixing bowl with her head beneath her wing. She was full of _sufganiyot_ and Jaffa Cakes, and all was right with the world.

Tomorrow was going to be spectacular.

*

Two idyllic days in a row bade well for the Showstopper Challenge as it began. The sun would shine down on eight self-contained bread fondue sculptures, in four and a half hours. It was a tall order but not an impossible one, with most of the bread-related time devoted to rise and thus available for the construction of fillings and décor.

After yesterday’s debacle, all proving drawers were opened with care, but the goose evidently was not playing the same trick twice.

“Phew,” said Inspiringly Youngest Contestant, wiping their brow and, despite the stated moratorium on discussing the goose, turned to the camera and explained, “I’m actually really afraid of geese. One bit me in, um, an uncomfortable place when I was a kid.”

One workstation over, Elderly Scotswoman (who thankfully had backup hearing aids) chimed in, “Got you too, huh?”

“Ugh, gross,” Inspiringly Youngest Contestant laughed.

“Less goose, more bread,” said the cameraperson. “Paul and Mary, incoming.”

Sure enough, Paul and Mary (and Sue) came up to Inspiringly Youngest Contestant’s workstation and positioned themselves on the far side of it with the practiced ease of several seasons. “So, tell us about your bake!”

Inspiringly Youngest Contestant put their dough into the gooseless proving drawer and popped back over the edge of the counter to get to work on their cheese-and-cocoa filling. “Well, uh, I’d actually never had fondue before I’d started preparing for this challenge, so I did some research. I kept seeing it turn up as something people used to have when they went skiing.”

“And wearing terrible wigs,” Sue added, reminiscing fondly on another, less wholesome, food show she had done. Mary and Paul smiled inscrutably as well.

“Right,” said Inspiringly Youngest Contestant. “So I thought I’d make a volcano.”

Mary and Paul’s inscrutable smiles turned up into startled grins. “A volcano!” said Mary. 

Paul laughed through his teeth. “After all you’ve been having trouble with larger bakes, are you sure that’s such a good idea?”

Inspiringly Youngest Contestant waved their hands in correction. “Not that large. It’s less dough than my Signature. Just the shape, is a volcano. That’s also how I’m making sure the chocolate doesn’t leak out the bottom.”

Mary blinked. “Chocolate?”

Sue brightened. “Chocolate!”

“Yeah,” said Inspiringly Youngest Contestant, “chocolate. Since fondue’s usually bread and cheese, or fruit and chocolate, so I thought, why not do a bread and chocolate? Well, chocolate cheese.”

The cameraperson was looking somewhere between skeptical and queasy, but the nature of camerapeople was not to turn up on camera at all, so it didn’t matter. This was about the point where, in the episode, a tasteful illustration of the intended volcano would interrupt the conversation, with a loving descriptive title and explanation courtesy Mel or Sue, whoever could refrain from busting a gut laughing.

“Chocolate cheese,” Mary repeated, obviously amused by the vagaries of youth. “A mascarpone, or a goat’s cheese?”

“No, this is going to be savory, like chicken mole poblano, but with cheese.”

“Like a deconstructed enchilada,” Sue mused, helpfully.

Inspiringly Youngest Contestant produced a sketch out of the pile of detritus at the end of their bench. “Exactly. See, the volcano will be a spicy chili bread with cumin and onions, and the cheese will be chocolate.”

“So we go from skiing and bad hair to Aztec volcanoes, just like that,” Sue said, snapping her fingers for emphasis. “I love my job.”

“That you’re saying it’s chocolate, not cocoa, worries me a little,” said Paul. “A few bakers have tried to convince me on cocoa as a savory, but chocolate, less so. Which is it, cocoa or chocolate?”

“I’m using both,” Inspiringly Youngest Contestant said, uneasily, clearly put on the spot. “I’ve, um, it needs the sugar.”

“What kind of cheese are you starting from?”

“A mix of Gruyere and white cheddar, and some double cream to thin it out.”

“All right,” said Paul, smiling brilliantly, in the fashion that meant _your culinary ruin has been assured._ “Good luck with that.”

“Thanks, Paul,” said Inspiringly Youngest Contestant, grating their cheese and begging internally for the sweet release of death.

The goose, who had been lurking out of the frame, bit Paul on the arse and stole his car keys out of his pocket.

On instinct, the cameraperson sought out the goose, knowing that Paul’s hilariously pained expression would turn up on other people’s cameras, from a half-dozen angles, and damn June, this goose needed to be immortalized. But all the cameraperson caught was the proud fanned tail as the goose ran off into the attached breakroom, darting through the legs of one sound tech and trampling some fallen casualty dough along the way.

“After that goose!” Paul bellowed, because the only thing he loved more than iced buns and his own nuts were those fancy cars.

“We have to re-shoot that scene!” June yelled right back. “Forget the goose!”

Paul scowled, thunderous, but it was too late: even the cameraperson had failed to catch anything but the tail end of the goose as she bolted.

“You’ve got so many other cars,” said Sue.

“Still not helping,” said Paul.

*

It turned out there was a great deal of perverse amusement to be had with both the sound equipment and the people holding on to it.

~~_(To Do As Well) boom goes the dyna-mic_ ~~  
~~_(To Do As Well) hell is that noise_ ~~  
~~_(To Do As Well) Claude Degoosey_ ~~

*

“I need a cheese pun,” Sue said, perched on a stool by the back-right refrigerator as the crew experienced its Hitchcockian hellscape. “Or a melting pun. Or at the very least, a _bread_ pun that I haven’t already used. But all I can think of are goose puns. That bird has stolen my puns, Mel. They’re all I had.”

“Come on then,” Mel said, consolingly. “They’re not _all_ you have.”

“They were ever since those time-travelers repossessed my house.”

“Oh, _that’s_ why you want the goose on camera,” Mel finally understood, “classic impostor syndrome,” pulling up a stool of her own in front of Sue’s so their knees touched. Outside the clear plastic panels of the tent wall behind them, a cameraperson staggered by, legs hobbled by a tangle of extension cords and one unfortunate-looking banana. “You’re more than just your puns, you know.”

Sue’s eyes went almost as wide as her glasses. “No one’s ever said that to me before.”

“I’m not surprised,” Mel said, with a quirk at the corner of her mouth.

“Just rub salt in the wound, why don’t you.”

“That was almost a bread pun!”

“Almost only counts in horseshoes and Hollywood Handshakes.”

Mel reached the short way over and patted Sue on the knee. “You’ll find one. We’ve got five minutes before there’s five minutes to go.”

“The goose is funnier than I am, Mel. That’s not _fair_.”

“Maybe you just need a pop-cultural sketch? Or a silly hat? Or a deliberately ugly sweater?”

Another crew member lumbered by, mummified in Union Jack bunting.

“I just want to joke about what’s actually happening,” Sue said, completely seriously. “We get enough disinformation on every other channel. There’s a goose in the tent, Mel. There’s a goose in the tent and we’re not allowed to say anything. John Mulaney gets to say there’s a horse in the hospital and we can’t even make puns about a goose.”

Mel sighed and bowed forward, her hand still on Sue’s knee and the tall stool on only two of its four legs.

The goose seized the opportunity and barreled into the stool. Gravity thereafter worked its lesboerotic magic.

~~_make Mel and Sue kiss_ ~~

“Well,” said Sue, her lips still faintly moist. “That was cheesy.”

“Good to have you back,” said Mel, bussing Sue’s nose.

*

Eight massive bread bowls dripping fondue in various stages of completion stood at the end of eight hastily-cleaned workstations, with eight exhausted and thankfully uninjured bakers posing for the already-tense Showstopper establishing shot.

One after another, the bakers presented their bakes for judging, but this was fraught even for a Showstopper Challenge in an overheated cheese-infused tent. Not even the Armagnac-drenched Camembert en croute was lightening the atmosphere as the bakers stood with their hands clasped behind their backs, awaiting the judgment not of Paul but of the feathery arbiter of this Stygian circle of fondue Hell. Not that Paul wasn’t judgmental – he was in rare form – but a decidedly unwholesome pall hung over the proceedings, especially since the elephant in the room was not to be discussed, not even to be blamed for under-risen bread, sloppy decorations, feather-flecked cheese sauce, or conspicuously missing fondue forks.

Inspiringly Youngest Contestant presented their chocolate volcano, which was miraculously upright. It nestled onto the judging table, as the camerapeople hovered just out of range, getting as many angles as they could while the cocoa-cheese lava flowed aesthetically down the crust.

“All right,” said Paul, with the air of the once and future suffering.

“I must say, it’s very original,” said Mary, diplomatically.

“Let’s see if it stands up,” Paul said, picking up the fresh breadknife to take a chunk out of the base.

Mel craned over, and said, “Careful, or we’ll get a caldera.”

Paul looked up, with an eyebrow-raise that would doubtlessly be taken out of context in post.

Production Assistant Basil Reedington, in charge of capturing the moment of incision, crept a little closer with a new camera braced in his hard, pale knuckles. The well-lit knife glinted with the blue of Paul’s eyes as it perforated the crust, sawing only once before disaster struck.

From beneath the judging table came a _honk_.

The knife slipped out of Paul’s hand and clattered to the floor, and everyone, more startled than they meant to be, leapt back from the table as it began to quake. The fondue volcano, true to form, erupted as the goose rose from the depths, tablecloth draped across her spread wings. She snatched the knife off the ground before the cataclysm could drown it, and, devastation in her wake, menaced the cutlery at Basil.

“Oh my,” said Mary.

“For the love of god,” said Basil.

“Honk,” said the goose around a mouthful of knife-handle.

As Basil fell and staggered in terror, the goose continued to press him, until, second camera destroyed and crew dumbstruck, she managed to drive her hostage from the tent and onto the green grounds of the manor, leaving a wake of pungent faux mole poblano.

Some way away, at the gates of Welford Park, Paul’s hot-rod red Aston Martin was waiting. Basil, in a blind panic, crashed into the driver’s side door.

“Honk,” said the goose.

“For the love of _god_ ,” said Basil.

~~_steal the posh car_ ~~

*

The car coasted to a stop several miles away from the manor. Only then did the goose poke the knife she held in her bill in poor hapless Basil’s general direction, indicating that he should get out at last. Which he did. Whimpering. And then took off at a run for civilization, never to venture into the countryside again, but that no longer mattered to the goose.

Alone at last, her tasks completed, she dropped the knife into the grass and hopped into the backseat. It took some doing, but she dragged her true prize out of the Aston Martin and onto the damp earth.

The crystal commemorative Bake-Off tray made a lovely _clink_ as it nestled against her pile of beautiful golden bells.

The goose honked with glee at the prospect of returning for the Christmas special.

*

“Fuck it, we’re moving to Channel 4,” said Executive Producer June Howard.

*

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